Ford of Europe has unveiled its distinctive new ‘kinetic design form language’ with a crossover concept called Iosis X which is making its debut at the 2006 Paris motor show today (28 September).
Go deeper with GlobalData
“We’re calling this car Iosis X as a deliberate link to our ‘kinetic design’ concept car lineage started last year,” said Ford Europe’s executive design director Martin Smith.
“The link is not just in the name – there’s a strong visual relationship between the two cars, and the ‘X’ signals the new vehicle’s crossover capabilities.”
“The Iosis X is an exciting five-door sports-crossover that proves we can extend the boundaries of kinetic design into a niche market vehicle,” added Smith. “It takes our ‘energy in motion’ philosophy even further and shows how different Ford cars will be in the future.”
Production model coming
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalDataA key purpose behind the creation of the iosis X was to “prepare the public for the introduction of a future Ford of Europe niche model”, the automaker said.
“There’s been a lot of speculation about Ford producing a compact crossover or sport utility vehicle,” said Ford of Europe president and CEO John Fleming.
“The Iosis X is intended to send a very strong message that we will be entering this market in around 18 months from now, and that our new model will be both stylish and individual.”
But the automaker stressed the show car “is very clearly a concept and is not intended to be representative of this future production model. Instead, it sets out to explore the ways in which Ford’s kinetic design form language and detailing can be applied to a niche vehicle in a rugged and exciting way.”
“Customers will be able to get a feel for the design direction our production model will take, and when we do reveal that model next year the relationship between it and the Iosis X will be immediately apparent,” Smith added.
New styling
Smith said the original Iosis concept shown at Frankfurt last year revealed the new styling cues that ultimately will be applied in varying levels across Ford’s future European vehicle portfolio.
“The Iosis concept has been a great ambassador for Ford design,” noted Smith, adding “the reception it received from the public and the media gave us the confidence to stretch our design team even further for future vehicles.”
Part of the task since the Iosis has been to widen the audience for this new look, and to generate a heightened expectation for what Ford is going to do next and demonstrate how ‘kinetic design’ could translate into other market segments with this latest concept.
“This dramatic concept car sends a clear message that the look of Ford’s European products is changing. Already, elements of kinetic design are appearing in [the] latest new production models such as the S-Max [a critically-accliamed new minivan crossover that is selling very well] and the redesigned 2007 Mondeo also making its debut – unusually in wagon form – at Paris.
Ford of Europe’s chief exterior designer, Stefan Lamm, said: “We wanted to explore and demonstrate how kinetic design could work on a high packaged body. This was one of the challenges for us, to maintain this dramatic, emotional design language.”
Lamm and his team were keen to exploit what appears to be an emerging trend for sporting crossovers or SUVs and a movement away from the traditional two-box styling that dominates the segment irrespective of vehicle size.
“This opportunity suits kinetic design perfectly – Iosis X is more of a four-door coupé crossover which is very compact and emphasises Ford’s driving dynamics.”
This is not just PR hype – under the direction of Richard Parry Jones (now a Ford group vice president heading global product development and chief technical officer) when he was in charge of European chassis development, Ford Europe’s ‘cooking’ models like the Focus and Mondeo, which sell by the thousands to both fleet and private buyers, delivered ride and handling praised by auto critics continent-wide and are still regarded as among the ‘benchmark’ cars in their respective sectors.
According to Ford, Lamm and his team wanted “to move the ‘kinetic design’ story on while retaining all of the key elements of the form language”. As a result, the chunky five-door sports coupé crossover on display in Paris has a completely different stance and dimensions to the original Iosis concept, a sleek muscular four-door coupé, yet the two are undeniably linked.
Sporty crossover
“This vehicle shows how we can apply kinetic design principles to a different type of vehicle,” said Smith. “We’ve taken all the key themes and graphic elements first seen on Iosis and morphed them into a very sporty crossover with the footprint of a compact C-segment car” (an ideal size for Europe’s narrow roads, cramped cities and tiny parking spaces).
Most noticeable are the strong inverted trapezoid elements, including a prominent lower grille section. “The dominant lower inverted trapezoidal grille is now a really strong brand element,” noted Lamm.
Impending pedestrian impact legislation has influenced a distinctive approach to front overhang and headlamp design. The front corners are aggressively chamfered, reducing the apparent size of the overhang, while the large headlamps follow the chamfering into the front wings, resulting in a distinctive kicked back appearance.
“Rather than see the pedestrian protection legislation as an inhibitor to the design philosophy, we now treat it as a positive design attribute,” said Smith. “To accommodate the required volume in the front of the vehicle we have not only chamfered the corners back, but we have included a deep offset from the top of the hood [bonnet] to the front wings, creating a distinctive shoulder that runs along the side of the car to the rear.”
In side profile, muscular surfacing and “strong and athletic shoulders” run through the car, and are underscored by a dynamic undercut line that gives the concept an extremely dynamic stance, further enhanced by very bold wheel lips. Air vents aft of the front wheel arches, a key signature on the original iosis, appear also on iosis X, drawing air from the front brakes.
No B pillar
Side doors hinge outwards at the leading edge of the front door and rear edge of the smaller back door and are designed without a B pillar to give easy access and an uninterrupted view of the interior.
“When the car is viewed from three-quarters, either front or rear, the last visual points you should see are the wheels, and that’s just the case with the iosis X,” said Lamm. “I especially like looking at the car from the rear three-quarters view because that emphasises the undercut which develops in a different direction to the original iosis, with a stronger shadow at the rear gradually fading out to the front.”
In addition to leading the eye around each of the corners at the front, acute chamfering also serves to disguise the longer rear overhang.
“It needs to be longer at the rear otherwise the roof line would stop abruptly and the car would look quite truncated,” Lamm said.
Rugged and dynamically formed ‘skid plate’ claddings on the lower part of the vehicle stand off from the body and create a new look.
“Usually there is some dark plastic or painted, grained plastic in the rocker area,” Lamm noted. “We decided to move in a different direction and designed ‘skid plates’ as separate elements on the car that aren’t integrated into the shape but floating on the side panels. These were inspired by the aerodynamic foils we see on the side of a Formula One car.”
At the side, these ‘skid plates’ fold down to act as a step for easy access into the vehicle. They are fitted with rubber treads featuring the same patterns used in the tyres.
LED lamps
For its latest concept, Ford has capitalised on the use of latest lamp technology. Both front and rear lamps deploy LEDs featuring swept back top edges. But Lamm is particularly proud of their 3D structure and the way they seamlessly follow the contours of the body.
“Too many vehicles feature elements that look as if they’re attached to the surface or are poking through apertures that have been cut into the body work,” he said. “That’s not the case [here]. The lamps appear to be formed as one with the surface, which gives a terrific 3D effect and, if you look at the rear lights, you can see obvious links to the new S-Max and Galaxy” [Ford Europe’s newly-launched seven-seat minivan on an extended S-Max platform].
Wing section door mirrors housing spotlights are mounted high up on the ‘A’ pillars while the rear fog lamp runs the width of the car above the rear skid plate that also “floats” away from the bodywork.
Unusually for this class of vehicle, the concept is finished in an icy, brilliant white with a blue ‘flip’ effect in the paint finish which is set off by twin silver stripes running the length of the bonnet and etched into the glass roof.
“Most products of this type tend to be modern interpretations of moss green or greys. We thought it would be fun to do [the car] in a sheer white. That’s appropriate for us as we have a history of using white to good effect – think of the GT40s and rallying Escorts – and the current Fiesta ST is very popular in white with blue racing stripes,” Smith said.
‘Interlocking bridge’ console
The interior is dominated by a new ‘interlocking bridge’ centre console structure inspired by modern helicopter cockpit design. The large console dives down from the instrument panel dividing the front and rear pairs of seats and dominating the interior before dramatically sweeping upwards at the rear and into the roof.
The rear section of this console provides a support and opening mechanism for the one-piece rear hatch in place of traditional hinges and a secure location for the spare wheel.
A central overhead panel contains personal lighting for the front and rear occupants plus ambient lighting and an entertainment screen for rear passengers. It also houses three passenger grab handles which would traditionally be located on the cant rails above the doors.
Glass floor
Twin glass roof panels flank the central overhead console, and these are complemented by a totally unique new feature – a solid glass floor beneath the drivers and passenger seats which offers a most unusual view of the terrain below.
The slim instrument panel is a further development from that in the Iosis and some elements will probably feature in future Ford models.
New technology has allowed the interior designers to locate hardware for the information, entertainment and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems remotely away from their controls. This has freed up space under the instrument panel, creating a floating centre console and offering a greater feeling of spaciousness. It also allows practical storage facilities that customers could choose from, allowing them to tailor that area for their own needs.
A similar section in the rear console opens up the floor space for the back seat passengers.
Sequential gears
Although the iosis X is not intended to be a mechanical prototype, it is fitted with an electronic sequential gear change control in the centre console. Its innovative design is similar to that found on many computer games consoles, and fits snugly into the palm of the hand. Surrounding the gear shifter is a series of soft touch buttons for dynamic controls, including suspension and traction settings.
Air vents, which are usually a dominating feature of any fascia, have been subtly disguised with fine mesh blending them into their surroundings.
“We’ve spent a lot of time developing this mesh over the years,” said interior design team leader Nikolaus Vidakovic. “It took a lot of work to get it right so that the mesh wouldn’t vibrate or restrict air flow to the passengers.”
Orange mood lighting, created by light emitting diodes and light pipes, illuminates the interior.
“We wanted to create the feeling that driver and passengers are connected to the outside world and can see their surroundings more clearly,” Vidakovic said. “The glass floor is absolutely unique in a vehicle, like those that you get in boats which allow their passengers to look into the ocean. In this case, occupants will be able to see the elements beneath them as they travel.”
High-tech seats
The glass floor also led the design team to develop a unique mounting system for the front seats with runners either side of the glass panels. The added benefit to this is that it gives the rear seat passengers more foot room beneath the front seats.
The seats themselves are highly complex and have been designed specifically with the rigours of cross country or light off-roading in mind, featuring more supportive padding in the upper back section and integrated seat belts.
“We’ve bought trapezoidal elements and themes into the interior to link with the exterior, whilst the interior sheet metal and piano white surfaces are also links with the bodywork to create a harmonious entity,” added Vidakovic.
‘Extreme sports’ cabin
Ruth Pauli, chief designer for colour and trim, said her team took extreme sports as the inspiration for the materials and effects seen in the iosis X.
“A friend of mine is very keen on extreme winter sports like heliskiing and ice climbing and after visiting a sports equipment fair in Munich we came away with a lot of inspiration as to how we were going to fashion the interior,” said Pauli.
Colours and textures are “very cool and fresh, contrasting the darker atmosphere of the original iosis. The similarity between the two comes in the athletic and sporty approach, with the emphasis on premium feel in iosis X, and realised in detail elements such as the seams, stitching and combination of materials”.
For inspiration, Pauli and her team studied all the best quality ski equipment, including boots, helmets, body protection, goggles, gloves and the latest carbon skis as well as visual clips of personal music systems and fashion accessories.
Traditional materials have their place too. Considerable use has been made of European Nubuck and aniline leather.
“What we’ve selected here is a more subdued and sophisticated blue, which we then combine with very strong fluorescent accents, and orange highlights,” explained Pauli. “This is a distinct change from Ford’s corporate blue, which is very bold and strong, very classic.”
While most of the automotive world is using piano black for its interiors, Pauli’s team has gone in the opposite direction using high gloss piano white on the centre console and in the steering wheel.
“We think white is a very strong theme from a product design standpoint and we have applied it to both the exterior and interior. We’ve given the white elements a sophisticated sportiness to show depth and quality of colour,” Pauli said.
“Inside, we have combined the white, high gloss piano finish with metal elements, contrasted with darker, premium leathers that really add a new level of sophistication to the materials story.”
